Ever since the beginning of cinema titles, written words often printed on cards and then filmed, have been used to explain and caption motion pictures. In the early, silent days, title cards displayed the dialogue between scenes. Today titles credit people who worked on the film while also helping t

As a video editor, you need to be proficient with multiple post-production techniques. However, the knowledge and ability to execute these techniques is only one part of the equation. A successful editor also understands the various stages of video editing and when to implement each technique. In do

Opening title sequences have been a staple of film since the first feature. Initially, opening titles were printed or painted onto cards that were filmed. Since that time, opening title sequences have changed dramatically. Experimentation with animation led to a system in which titles were painted o

By understanding some of the more common time related story telling techniques, you’ll have a sense of what methods you can use to tell your stories. Real Time, Compressed Time, Extended Time It’s rare that a film is shot completely in real time like the classic western High Noon. In the

Many After Effects users are adept at using the software package’s ability to animate elements in 3D space, but more often than not, it’s what is referred to as 2.5D. 2.5D is the use of flat, two-dimensional elements in three-dimensional space. The resulting animation gives the illusion

If you’ve not heard of the stop motion technique, you’ve definitely seen its presence throughout the film industry in literally every decade. From the original 1930s King Kong to last year’s Boxtrolls, stop motion continues to be a beloved technique for animators and movie goers. Working in stop mot

Typography is the art of crafting and arranging letterforms. Contrary to popular belief, it’s an art with a history dating back to before the printed page, back to the origins of human writing. The purpose of typography is the conveyance of the written word. This ancient art continues to survi

MUCK draws horror fans into a world of old-school practical effects and extremely dangerous stunts in a way that they’ve never experienced before – in “Bloody Stunning” 4K Ultra HD. “With MUCK, we had to bring these practical effects into the light, because when you&rsq

There’s no arguing against the fact that digital technologies have changed the landscape of shooting video. The absence of tape has led to being able to manipulate the video directly through computer software means. But the changing of the guard from analogue to digital has not changed the nee

“You can make a great movie for $50,000 or $50,000,000, but it’s hard to make a great movie for $2,000,000,” a movie editor once told me. It was Hollywood bar talk, but what he was saying rang true. The history of cinema is filled with unforgettable movies made with budgets you could run citie

A reason for everything Everything should be calculated in your video editing – the music, the timing and the transitions. Cuts are the least obtrusive transition and, as such, the most common. Anything else calls attention to itself and you need to be able to justify its use. The most common reason

Often considered the “black box” of video production, a video I/O (input/output) device can come across as a mysterious piece of equipment. Many producers and independent video creators who don’t use an I/O device wonder what it does. The big questions are: What’s it for? Why

The biggest advantage to shooting raw is that the color of the images produced is unaltered so the highest image quality possible from the camera is maintained. The downside of working with raw files is that they take up more storage space than processed/compressed video. Additionally, the post prod

Dialog is a tricky element for the video editor. Interview footage is easy by comparison; the dialog from an interview is raw and the expectation is that the video editor will cut it up to make sense, to carry forward a thought or idea, to present the best expression to fit the video’s narrati

It’s a daunting task for the beginning editor to determine which of the numerous tools at their disposal are best used to create the look they want. In a short amount of time, an editor can find themselves round-tripping their edit through multiple applications, trying to get a specific look.

I remember the day I bought my first piece of editing software. I had just shot video for a high school Spanish project with some friends and immediately ran to the electronics store to pick up a copy of Pinnacle Studio. I rushed home to begin cutting my cinematic masterpiece and was immediately fas

Secondary color correction is the process of using mattes and masks to isolate individual regions and specific subjects within a video image to apply color correction. There are times when secondary color correction is used to subtly change the contrast in the shadowed portion of the background, and

The possibilities for creating animations with Adobe After Effects are pretty close to limitless. We can composite complex scenes, add thousands of lens flares to Star Trek footage, or create fun graphics without any live action footage whatsoever. So with all of these possibilities, how does one fi

The timeline of any video editing program is the foundation of an edit. It’s the place where the video editor digs their hands in and gets dirty. More often than not, it’s going to be a thicket of weeds. An organized timeline helps the video editor to work efficiently through a project.

VFX software company, Red Giant, this week released an update to their Universe offering. Included in the update are a handful of new free and premium effects, native-style transitions for Premiere Pro CC and CC2014, and support for Sony Vegas. The new additions include three effects and six transit